


Cannonball Me, Baby

by coraxes



Series: TAZ Ficlet Bundle [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Balance Arc, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Spoilers for Story and Song, Spoilers for The Stolen Century, rating/tags will change as I write more stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-10-26 22:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10796340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: Ficlet collection for The Adventure Zone's balance arc.  Future shorts for this arc will still go in this collection, even though it's marked complete.1. a dog person [magnus, magnus/julia]2. how it ends [barry/lup]3. only names [lucretia]4. lost, but i don't know why [lup, barry/lup, au]5. a proposal [carey/killian]6. offers you can refuse [magnus, istus, au]





	1. a dog person [magnus/julia, angst]

**Author's Note:**

> as the summary says, this is a ficlet collection for the adventure zone to go with my ficlet collection for critical role. probably there will be a lot of angst, since that's the kind of person i am.
> 
> comments are always appreciated!! i know the fics are short, but any feedback is great. 
> 
> feel free to request stuff on my tumblr, magsides, though i can't guarantee i'll do them.

“You’re a young guy, Magnus,” says Merle, in one of his more dad-ly moments.  “You ever think about having a couple kids?”

It’s times like these where Magnus wishes that Taako and Merle knew what had happened to him.  That he had managed to tell them.  Because–

 _Do you ever think about having kids, Magnus?_  she asked him.  Not long after they’d met, but they fell in love so quickly it didn’t matter.  He laughed, wrapped his arm around her.

 _Maybe someday.  After we get rid of Calen and everything’s safe…maybe then._ The gazebo was only half-built, and Magnus felt barely out of childhood himself.  He couldn’t raise another _person._ And–selfishly, he didn’t want to share Julia with anyone else just yet.  

 _You ever think of having one of your own?_ Steven asked.  Magnus sat in a rocking chair in front of the store while Steven’s youngest grandchild drooled on his shoulder.

Ravensroost was safe.  He had _made_ it safe, and he and Julia were happy but he looked down at the baby and wondered what it would be like if the baby had Julia’s smile or his own eyes.   _Maybe someday,_ he said, but _someday_ felt a lot closer now.

Now Magnus looks down at his hands, the strip of pale skin where his wedding ring used to sit (he doesn’t wear it anymore–too much of a chance he’d lose it).  He wonders what would have happened if he’d said _I love you, Jules,_ and after that a much smaller pair of arms had wrapped around his waist.  What it would be like to still see her smile in a different face, or show small fingers how to properly hold an ax.

Knows that if they had started a family, he would be mourning another person now instead of just a lost possibility.

“Nah,” says Magnus.  “I’m more of a dog person.”


	2. how it ends [lup/barry]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write about Lup, and also how Lup/Barry might have started from her end. So here--combo character study + ship stuff.

Weird, Lup thinks.  She always figured when she died, Taako would be there.

Sweat pours down her face, trickling into her eyes and soaking through the collar of her robes.  She’s been calling up blasts of flame for what feels like hours, until her arms ached and the edges of her sleeves were charred.  “That all you got, dipshits?” she yells at the Hunger’s minions as she fries another line, but her voice chokes on the last word--she’s been yelling and breathing smoke for too long.

“Four o’clock!” Barry yells, and Lup turns on reflex, taking out a minion before it could sink a spearlike arm into her ribs.

There’s no point, she knows.  They’re fucking doomed--they didn’t find the light of creation; that was what they were _trying_ to do, but Davenport and Merle kicked it on the way, maybe three months ago.  Since then it’s been Lup and that nerd, and it was all for fucking nothing.

“Hey, listen,” she says between blasts of fire.  Barry just nods, jaw set, and swipes out with a blast of--something.  She doesn’t know what kind of magic he’s on, but it’s some dark shit.

There’s a lull in the hunger’s advance, a few seconds between one wave and the next, and Lup extinguishes her fists.  “Listen, Barry,” she says, and holds out a hand, “I’m tired, okay?”

Because--shit.  The others can go down fighting, and maybe someday she will too, but right now there’s no point.  Some minion will get her and then the hunger will destroy this planet, and she’ll wake up back on the Star-Blaster with her brother and the rest.

She has a choice, and she wants to choose how it’s going to end.

Barry looks at her hand and slumps, for a second, as he realizes what she’s saying.  And then he nods.  “Alright.”  He meets her eyes, oddly intense, and grabs her hand.  Only the force of his grip shows that he’s just as scared as she is-- _what if it doesn’t work?  What if no one else made it out?_

It doesn’t matter.  She feels his hand go slack in hers seconds later when he’s taken out by a minion, and then--

An approaching blur of darkness, a sharp pain in her sternum, and she’s on the Star-Blaster.

“Lulu,” Taako says, voice shrill, “you’re alright?”

She flexes her hand.  “I’m fine,” she says, and meets Barry’s eyes over Taako’s shoulder, staring down at the hand that had held hers.  He glances up, blushes when he sees she’s staring.

 _Oh,_ Lup thinks, and then, _shit._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you liked this one, please comment/leave a kudos! i cannot tell you how happy those make me. (and it's finals week, i need it.)


	3. only names [lucretia, angst]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tiny au. spoilers for the last ep of stolen century.

Killian had reported that she was bringing in three new reclaimers, but Lucretia saw four figures walking up to her on the dais.  Three were familiar, and she tried to keep her expression blank as she looked at them.  Her friends.  Her family.  Taako, looking bereft without his shadow.  Merle, somehow even crunchier than when she’d last seen him.  Magnus...Magnus, pulling a toddler along by the hand.

Lucretia stood involuntarily.  

She couldn’t have been much older than three.  Her pigtails were singed but they didn’t seem to bother her; she looked around the room with her father’s soft brown eyes, one of her hands curled around Magnus’s thumb.

Lucretia tried to keep her voice even as she explained the situation to them.  They thought she was a stranger, she reminded herself.  They  _had_ to believe she was a stranger.  Once they forced their way through introductions, she asked, “And what’s your daughter’s name?”

“Lucy,” Magnus said, grinning at the chance to talk about his kid.  “It’s a nickname.  Lucretia’s pretty, but it’s kind of big for such a _widdle_ baby, yes it _iiiiis_...”  His voice slipped into baby talk and he swept the toddler up in his arms, poking her belly.

“Oh,” said Lucretia, and this was too much.  She really should have had them knocked out already.

He had named his  _daughter_ after her.  He didn’t remember her--she would have been able to tell if he did--but...God.   _Fuck._

She had missed  _so much._

“It’s good that you have this base,” said Magnus, oblivious, though Lucretia could see Killian looking at her curiously from the corner of her eye.  “I kinda have to take her along on jobs and stuff, but...you guys have a childcare plan, right?  That’s gotta be part of the benefits package.”

“Well--” Killian started, but Lucretia cut her off.

“We can figure something out,” she said, and smiled, quick and private, just to herself.  “Whatever you... _all_ of you...need.”


	4. lost, but i don't know why [lup, blupjeans, au]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> au: what if lup hadn't been dead when lucretia erased everyone's memories?

Lup stares at the bar and realizes: she has no clue what the fuck she’s doing.

“What am I even doing here?” she asks the bartender, a youngish dwarf man.  There’s a lot of dwarves in Phandolin; a family owns a nearby mine.  That thought seems important, but Lup doesn’t know why.  


The dwarf shrugs.  “The hell should I know?  You just showed up in town ‘n’ started askin’ questions.”

Lup frowns.  It sounds familiar, but... “Questions about what?”

The dwarf scowls at the bartop like he’s trying to remember something, then shakes his head.  “Dunno.  Looking for something.”

Looking for something.  That sounds about right.  There’s an ache in her chest, in her head, like she’s lost something important.  She just doesn’t know what the fuck it _is._

Probably fucking Greg Grimauldis, Lup decides.  He definitely owes her something, though she can’t remember what.

She downs her drink and rents a room--she has a pretty good bit of gold on her; probably from odd jobs, though she can’t remember saving up this much before.  Lup’s dreams are fuzzy and unsettled, and when she wakes up she’s crying but she can’t remember why.

* * *

Lup is, she quickly discovers, really fuckin’ good at blowing things up.  She finds this out on the road out of Phandolin when a few enterprising humans try to steal her coin purse, and she takes out most of the road.

Right, she’s great at fire--why didn’t it occur to her before?  Something’s definitely screwy in her memory, but maybe she’s just been drunk a lot, or some shit.  She's never exactly led a stable life; there are no friends she can call up for a chat, no one to tell her if she's lost a week or a year of her life.

So Lup puts it out of her mind, and puts her newfound blowing-things-up powers to good use.  She takes on merc jobs because, well, she hasn’t set down roots yet; no point in starting now.  Guards caravans, works event security, accompanies noblemen into death traps.  The red coat becomes her signature, though eventually it’s destroyed in a drawn-out (literal) firefight.  Red works for her, so she gets a new one and tears the sleeves off.

She cooks when she has time and access to a kitchen.  One day she hands a mixing bowl to someone behind her, thinks, _He’s got it,_ and drops it.  Lup stares at the now-dented metal bowl, the disgusting splatter of raw meat and marinade on the floor, and her hands start shaking because _someone is supposed to be there_ and he’s _not._ She’s not supposed to be _alone._

* * *

She meets Barry after a few years and they see each other, on and off.  Sometimes they work the same job, sometimes they don’t.  Lup never looks for him, but when he’s there they always end up together, somehow, like poles on a magnet.

Six years after Lup loses her memories in a Phandolin bar, she sees Barry die.  A clean swipe of an owlbear’s paw and he’s on the ground, gasping for his last breaths, but they’re all fighting for their lives and she doesn’t have _time_ to save him--

And then he’s rising from his own body, skeletal, trailing smoke.  He blasts magic at the pack of owlbears that had cornered them.  It’s like watching a corpse rot but sped up, flesh turning black and melting from bones in an instant.  

Lup finds she’s not afraid of him at all.

She wrestles the umbrastaff into submission before it can suck up his lich form, leaving it sulking under her arm--she’s gotten practice with that, since her clients tend to get pissy if her magic wand vores their priceless artifacts.

“Oh my god,” says the thing that used to be Barry.  “Lup, babe, oh my god I--”  His skeletal fingers touch her face, dry and weirdly familiar, as his voice descends into static.  


“Barry?” she starts, more to make sure it’s really him than anything.  His eyes light up, literally, tiny fires flaring in the sockets.  She’s pretty good at reading skeleton-face.  She’s pretty sure that’s hope.  “I’ve got no idea what you’re saying.”  


Barry takes a deep breath--seems weird, since he doesn’t have lungs--and starts, “You’re...you’re missing something, aren’t you?  Been missing it for years now.”

Lup nods, slowly.

“What if I could help you get it back?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos <3 as always
> 
> find me crying about taz on tumblr @magsides


	5. a proposal [carey x killian]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is exactly what you think it is. spoilers for episode 68.
> 
> from an anonymous prompt on tumblr.

Carey looked out over the assembled army, Lup’s speech still ringing in her ears.  The last few hours had been...a lot.  First her best friend was dead, and then they were being attacked by invisible dudes, and then Magnus was okay but Killian was hurt and there was an apocalypse, and then she got like a hundred years of memories jammed in her brain.  Which, she was still trying to sort out that last one.  And N03113 had died, and there was still a pretty good chance that the world was going to end.

She leaned against Killian, her forehead pressed against her girlfriend’s uninjured arm.  

“You good, babe?” Killian asked, which really drove in how deep this shit was, because they  _never_  did pet names.

“Not really,” Carey admitted.  She straightened and shrugged, pulling her daggers out of their sheaths.  The Hunger was drawing closer; she couldn’t really afford to get a snuggle.

Maybe after...

Now or never, right?  “Hey, Killian?” she began.  “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

Carey reached into one of her many pockets to find the wooden ring Magnus had made for her ages ago.  At the time she hadn’t used it because she and Killian weren’t  _that_ serious.  But, well.  A lot could change in a few months when your job was life-or-death. 

“Yeah?” Killian prompted when Carey was quiet for another second, her eyes on the approaching army.  

“Will you, um...”  She held out the ring, sheepish.  “I can’t get down on one knee right now?  Cause we’re about to fight?  But you’re like two feet taller than me, so...”

Killian looked down at the ring, at Carey, and then back.  “Oh my god.  Carey.  Are you proposing?  In the middle of the apocalypse?”

“...Yeah?”  Carey’s tongue flickered out.  Goddammit.  She thought she was on top of that nervous tic.  

A slow smile spread across Killian’s face.  She reached for Carey’s hand--at first, she thought, to take the ring.  Instead she closed Carey’s fingers around it.  “Look, we’re about to fight for our lives.  But if you propose to me after this, when we for sure have a future to look forward to--I’ll say yes.  Okay?”

The refusal stung, just a little, but she knew what Killian meant.  She didn’t want their actual engagement to start out of desperation.  She’d much rather start it covered in the blood of their enemies, or whatever this Hunger thing leaked.  

Carey pocketed the ring again, nodding, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss Killian’s cheek.  “I love you,” she said, sing-song.

“Love you too,” said Killian, nocking a crossbow bolt.  “Now let’s cancel this apocalypse.”


	6. offers you can refuse [magnus, istus, au]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought of paladin!Magnus, and it wouldn't leave me. Here, take it.

**1.**

There was an old lady sitting in Magnus’s room and knitting on the Star-Blaster.  Which was weird because there had definitely been no old ladies there when he went to use the bathroom five minutes ago, and also the Star-Blaster was hidden in a cave under one of Cap’n’port’s illusion spells.

“Uh, hi?” he said.  Should he be reaching for his sword now?  Magnus decided not to; he didn’t want to scare her if she was just an old lady, and she hadn’t done anything to him.  “Can I help you?”

“If you’d like,” said the old woman, smiling in a way that showed all the gaps in her teeth.  “You did very well to defend my temple.”

Oh.  “You’re a priestess of Istus?” Magnus tried.  The Star-Blaster had landed near the temple on a world that was constantly at war, and the clergy there had hidden them.  Unfortunately some warlord had gotten wind of it, decided the temple was keeping something in there that would make him rich, and attacked.  The Star-Blaster crew had, of course, kicked ass.  He grinned back at the old lady.  “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

She laughed.  “No, no.  I _am_ Istus.”

Magnus blinked, stared, and wondered if one of them had lost their minds.  But, hell.  He was an alien from another universe, fleeing a monster that ate worlds.  Meeting a goddess wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened to him.  “Cool,” he said finally.  “So, um, what are you doing here?”

She looked at him with odd eyes--they looked silvery at first, but the more Magnus looked the more he saw different colors reflecting there, spiraling out into the whites.  “You and your friends are all tangled with the threads of fate,” said Istus.  “I’ve seen other universes, but I have never seen others like you.  It’s why my clergy took you in, you know--I wanted to see what made you different.”

She held out a hand.  “If you like, you could pledge yourself to me, as your friend has pledged himself to Pan.  Become my paladin.  Take my power, and use it to shape fate.”

He would be stupid to turn that down.  Magnus looked at the outstretched hand, and back up into the old woman’s searching face.  

As Taako had said many times, Magnus was plenty stupid.

“Thanks for the offer,” he said, “but I didn’t get where I am by trusting someone else for my power.  Whatever strength I have needs to come from me.”

Istus rolled her eyes, and disappeared.

**2.**

This was it, Magnus thought, leaning on the railing of The Hammer and Tongs’s porch.  He looked out over Raven’s Roost, where he knew an army was getting together in secret, and past that to the governor’s mansion.  The last night of peace, and who knew what happened in the morning.  

Part of him, the part that took over whenever he swung an axe or twirled his knife around his fingers, was excited.  Finally, they could stop with the whispers and just _fight_ already.  But the part that lived in this house with Julia and Steven was terrified.  He had built a life here, and he could lose that, lose _them._

“You’ll probably win,” said a quiet, high voice.  

Magnus whirled around and saw a small girl sitting in one of Steven’s rocking chairs.  Her hair was white threaded with silver, pulled into braided pigtails, and she twirled string in a cats-cradle between her hands.  “What are you doing here?” he asked, ignoring her words for a moment.

“I thought you might want help,” she said.  There was something weirdly adult about her...everything.

“Help with what,” he asked warily.  They hadn’t had to deal with child spies, but he wouldn’t put much past Kalen.

“The revolution.  C’mon, Magnus,” she chided, sounding like nothing so much as Steven, “don’t play stupid.”

“I...”  He frowned as she looked up at him, and noticed her weird, shifting eyes.  “Who are you?”

“Istus,” said the girl promptly.  He recognized the goddess’s name, of course, and his first instinct was to protest.  But...something about this girl made him want to believe her.  He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t question it, either.  “If you want, I could make you a paladin.  You could draw on my strength tomorrow, and all the days after.  It would strengthen your chances.”

His first thought was, _duh._ Of course he’d take a goddess’s help--anything to even the odds.  But his second thought was, _what happens after_?

Magnus had known paladins.  Not many, but a few had passed through Raven’s Roost.  And he knew the kind of life they led.  Retired carpenter-soldiers, those happened all the time.  But paladins didn’t settle down into a quiet life with their wife and father-in-law.  They couldn’t, not when their gods needed them.  “If I take your offer today...then that means giving up my life, doesn’t it?  Even if we win, I couldn’t have _this_.”  He waved a hand at The Hammer and Tongs, vaguely.

He thought he saw Istus smile.  “Yes, you’re right.”

“Then...”  Fuck, he was an idiot.  “I have to say no.  We’re fighting for our lives tomorrow.  Our _normal_ lives.  Maybe it’s selfish, but...I can’t give that up, if there’s already a chance we’ll win.”  If he were more desperate, if he didn’t already have faith in the villagers, he would have taken the offer.  But he was just scared, not desperate.

Istus nodded.  “Alright, Magnus.”  She stood, walked over to him, and stood on her toes to hug him.  “I hope you win,” she said, and disappeared, leaving Magnus with only the phantom feeling of a child-goddess’s arms around his waist.

**3.**

Months later, Magnus stood in the same place, looking at the wreckage of what used to be his home.

Kalen was gone, free.  The funeral was over, and the future they had dreamed of was dead.  Steven and Julia were dead.  

Magnus had cried so hard it hurt, like their absence was a physical thing, a literal heartbreak.  But now he just felt...empty.  Like there was nothing else in him to cry out.  

 _What now_?

Cloth swished beside him, and Magnus turned to the sound.  A woman stood next to him, young, about his age.  About Julia’s age.  With silver hair and a pair of knitting needles and yarn in her hands.  He recognized her immediately.  “Istus,” he said, blankly, not questioning, beyond caring.

She seemed to realize that.  “My offer stands, Magnus.  If you want to take it...you could travel.  You could stop things like this from ever happening again.”

“Will I find Kalen?”  It was the only thing that really mattered anymore.  

She frowned and looked down at the net of string dangling from the needles. “I don’t know, but there’s a shot.”

A shot was pretty much all he had left.  

“Fine,” Magnus said.  “What do I have to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me at @magsides crying over taz always
> 
> comments/kudos are <3


End file.
